Thursday, October 31, 2013

How cool is a Halloween birthday? I'm beginning to think it has to be one of the top birthdays.

People dress up for your birthday, you can eat a bowl full of candy, give some to kids yelling trick

or treat, and have themed course meals with friends. Today we celebrate another year for Ty as

this wonderful man turns the big 2-8! Yes, I say that for every birthday. It's always "the big ___".

It doesn't matter the age. I'm pretty sure I need a new saying.

Cheers to this guy who tends to look half gone before he even starts!

How This Guy Celebrated

We spent last weekend in Sunriver with the Stanley/Sparrow crew celebrating the birthday

boy doing stuff like taking naps, jogging and biking the path, and having power walking

races at the ball field. It was great. Check it out below. Then we had a nice dinner on Tuesday
night with my family plus Grandma at a tasty Hawaiian restaurant in downtown Vancouver.
And guess what...he gets to celebrate all day today too! What a lucky guy he is.

Beautiful Sunriver, great for all seasons...

especially when you want to have power walking races

or end up being the big kid no young kid wants on the playground.

"Uncle Ty, you're too big for that"

On the "HBD Ty" agenda...

*a morning with his wife (best part about the day, right?) over
homemade paleo maple scones and eggs

Sunday, October 27, 2013

I disappeared from this blogging world I've put at the top of my list for the last 10 months. I went MIA without any forewarning. But as we know, sometimes life situations come at us without any forewarning. A new diagnosis for Papa Joe, a quick admission to the hospital, a discharge home, a celebration of life party Papa Joe had for himself while still alive, piano playing for the last time in front of his family and friends, another admission to the hospital, a discharge home, and then one last admission to the hospital before he left us. Three weeks, Papa Joe held on. He held on strong and I think not so much for himself, but for all of us he left behind. He gave each and every one of us those wonderful moments of stories, laughter, tears, and his still-living celebration of life party. And on top of it all, he gave me a true blessing and a wonderful gift.

A True Blessing

Up to this point, I had always feared the first death in our family. What role would I take on? Would I be the one crying all the time, upset, and unable to be around everything? Papa Joe showed me that I underestimated myself...my family gave me the opportunity to be the nurse as well as Papa Joe's granddaughter. The true blessing in it all was that I got to provide assistance for all his cares so he could maintain as much independence as possible, help the family make big decisions based on my medical background, prepare Papa Joe and family for the best and worse situations, walk everybody through the chronically ill/dying process, and spend hours after hours with Papa Joe whether it be sleeping beside him in a little cot majority of the nights he was at the hospital or in my grandparent's own home. We'd stay up until midnight chatting about life and wake up every couple hours at a time until morning where he'd share so many neat things with me. Sometimes it was jokes, sometimes it was a history lesson, at times he shared WWII stories, expressed his love and proud feelings to specific family members, prayed, and of course, we shared the idea of death and the dying process. I was blessed with those wonderful moments where I learned, I cried, and I began to understand Papa Joe on an entirely different level. He shared three weeks of the dying process with me, something in which not too many people get to experience that closely.

Just a few things Papa Joe shared with me...

*He could remember every possible invention in his lifetime. Take nylon way back

in the late 1930s. It was made out of coal, water, and air. That's it. Crazy, huh?

It's amazing how many inventions he saw in his lifetime. Pretty cool!

*Cereal...he could take it or leave it. The cereal tasted as good as the box. And it was

probably just as healthy as the box. (I think he had that right)

*WWII: he ditched his sleeping bag due to weight and shape. Instead, he dug foxholes just

big enough for a couple people to share and use body heat for warmth instead.

*WWII: he earned a purple heart for being shot in the leg and yet another medal because he
hid a man under his black rain jacket, waited until the end of the battle,
and then went back to get him.

*Professional pianist: lots & lots of tunes. He knew them all. In fact, he could tell us what

chord to play the song in, which keys to hit on the piano, and who initially wrote the piece.

It is something we will all cherish, but we will all miss so much...his piano playing!

*He was given the name "Joe" because his dad thought there could never be

enough of "good ol Joes"...and his dad was right, my Papa Joe was one amazing man!

*Favorite joke:

A man went to his doctor and said he wanted to be castrated. The doctor said that's a

big procedure and sir, I'd need you to read all these documents and sign your

name in several places so you don't come back to haunt me later in life. The man said

it'd be no problem, he wanted to go forth and sign away. The doctor got him in right away

and when the man got out of the procedure he looked down and saw all the bandages. He

looked over, saw another man with the same bandages, and asked what he had done. The other

man said he was circumcised. Then the castrated man said, that's what I meant to tell the doctor!

*Matthew 9:20-9:22. Cloaked in God's love. A daily reading we found in a magazine

that touched so close to home that night.

A Gift From My Papa Joe

Something I will never be able to thank him enough for and truly an amazing gift he gave me at

the end of his life was understanding what it's like to be on the other side of that hospital

room & knowing how to become the best nurse I can be to others. If you're curious, I'll

explain later. Right now all I will do is cry. I'll leave you with the idea that it has

been one of the best gifts I have received in my lifetime.

When Asked How He Wanted To Be Remembered...

One night at the hospital, my cousin had asked me to find out from Papa Joe what he

wanted to be remembered for. The rest of us would've assumed it would be for his piano

playing abilities, maybe his medals from the war, or the usual "a good person" or "good dad/papa."

Well he didn't say any of those things. Ty and I asked Papa Joe and his response was this:

"I'd like to be remembered for something like one of my favorite poems called

the Bridge Builder." For all of you interested, please read it. For those of you who don't,

it in essence is saying that he wants to be remembered for laying down the bridge for all those

behind him. He wanted to make their lives easy by laying down the path from the beginning.

That way, they don't have to struggle. Papa Joe wanted to ease everybody else's life and lead

them in the right direction in life. We can't thank him enough for everything he has

done in not just Ty and my life, but for all our family, his friends, and all those he's touched.

A Neat Coincidence

In the last couple days of Papa Joe's life, he played what he called "Hum That Tune." He'd

either listen to songs on the TV and guess them himself or he'd "hum" songs and have

people try to guess them. Well the morning after he passed, I looked outside our front window

and saw a hummingbird feeding on my favorite lavender plant. I find it coincidental that Papa

Joe was "humming" on his last days of his life and that a "humming" bird came to visit

me after he died. Call me weird, but I'm pretty sure Papa Joe just paid me a visit to say,

HIM & HER

She's a nurse. He's a teacher and coach. She has Celiacs disease. He has an iron stomach. We're lovers. We're crossfitters. We're 90% paleo eaters. We don't own a TV. We're huge Saints fans. We're in love with the Lord. We've been blessed with amazing family and friends and are on our way to adopting a child from South Africa! Thanks for stopping by!